Meat: A Threat to Our Planet reveals the real beef with meat

You don’t have to be Greta Thunberg or David Attenborough to know we’re facing an environmental crisis.

Climate change and its effects are visible every day.

But what you might not be aware of is that meat is one of the biggest contributing factors to the mess the planet is in.

This fascinating and somewhat horrifying documentary, fronted by science and wildlife presenter Liz Bonnin, following on from last year’s Drowning in Plastic, shows just what impact our fondness for eating flesh has on the planet as a whole.

Greta Thunberg (Getty)

And it’s seriously eye-opening, jaw-­dropping stuff.

The statistics alone are ­staggering: every year we consume an ­incredible 65 billion animals.

And it’s not just the space these animals occupy, although that’s the single biggest contributing factor to deforestation in the Amazon rainforest.

It’s also what happens to the waste ­products these vast numbers of creatures produce, which can pollute waterways and create tons of greenhouse gases.

Or the effect finding food sources to fatten all these animals up has on other ­wildlife, like the ­endangered African penguin.

Smoke billowing from fires in the forest in the Amazon biome in the municipality of Altamira, Para State, Brazil (Getty)

However, we also see the work being done by people to try and counteract these ­problems and find future-proof solutions.

Liz is open about being a carnivore herself, but it becomes clear that making the ­documentary may affect that decision.

As it may well for viewers.

We might not want to forego pigs in ­blankets with our Christmas turkey, but it’s clear that something’s got to give.